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Head of Work is a Neolithic long cairn situated in Orkney, Scotland, and protected as a scheduled monument by Historic Environment Scotland. The monument represents the monumental funerary architecture of Orkney's earliest farming communities, constructed during the fourth millennium before the present. Long cairns of this period served as collective burial monuments, their elongated form aligned with the cardinal directions and their internal chambers designed to accommodate multiple inhumations over generations of use.
The cairn is built upon bedrock composed of Middle Old Red Sandstone, a Devonian formation comprising conglomerate, sandstone, siltstone and mudstone. This local geology provided readily available stone for construction, a practical advantage that influenced the placement of Neolithic monuments across Orkney. The underlying substrate would have presented both challenges and opportunities for the builders, shaping the architectural solutions employed in the monument's construction.
Head of Work exemplifies the sophisticated communal organisation of Orkney's Neolithic inhabitants, whose monumental tombs rank among Britain's most impressive prehistoric structures. The monument's survival on the Orkney landscape, alongside comparable cairns and stone-built structures, testifies to the enduring cultural significance of these burial places and their importance to understanding the earliest periods of human settlement in Scotland's northern isles.
Head of Work,long cairn is a scheduled monument protected by Historic Environment Scotland under reference SM1274. View the official record →
Head of Work is a Neolithic long cairn situated in Orkney, Scotland, and protected as a scheduled monument by Historic Environment Scotland. It is designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument by Historic Environment Scotland under reference SM1274.
Head of Work,long cairn dates from the neolithic period, and is classified as a long cairn. It is one of over 32,000 scheduled monuments protected across the UK.
Head of Work,long cairn is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, legally protected by Historic Environment Scotland — the body responsible for designating and safeguarding heritage sites in Scotland. The official designation reference is SM1274.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Helliar Holm,chambered cairn (1.5 km), Car Ness Battery,Car Ness (1.6 km), Bay of Meil, chapel 250m W of Holland (2.2 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 14 strands of Head of Work,long cairn's history, each drawn from the record and mapped to the exact spot:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Head of Work,long cairn stands on Middle Old Red Sandstone (Undifferentiated), bedrock that formed in the Middle Devonian. The rock here is conglomerate, sandstone, siltstone and mudstone.